Keeping faith in the family

Stuart and Susan Boxerman have a lot to finish before Sunday. For the second night of Passover, they'll add two leaves to the table in their Boynton Beach home. Then they'll attach a specially built extension. Total length: 140 inches.

And that doesn't include the other preparations: cleaning, cooking, bringing out special tableware.

There's a lot to prepare when you can expect four generations - including five grandchildren - and maybe a few neighbors. But l'dor va-dor, "from generation to generation," is an essential part of Passover.

"There's a saying: If you want to see how successful you are, don't look at your children; look at your grandchildren," said Stuart Boxerman, 66, a retired university professor from St. Louis. "We hope they enjoy Jewish tradition and carry it forward."

Faith, family, heritage - all converge in Passover. It's more than a retelling of an epic story more than three millennia ago. It's also a time to share food and reunite generations.

As such, it reprises two equally vital experiences: the supernatural deliverance of their forebears from slavery in Egypt, and the warm bonds of bread, wine and family that make Passover one of the most-observed days on the Jewish calendar.

Various studies from 1997 to 2004 have found that 70 percent to 80 percent of South Florida Jews said they always or usually attend the Passover meal known as the Seder - even more than Jews nationally (67 percent).

"Passover is one of the most celebrated Jewish holidays, right up there with Hanukkah," said Ira Sheskin, director of the Jewish Demography Project at the University of Miami.

Other studies have found "remarkable consistency" in attending Seder across several age brackets, from 35 to 64, said Arnold Dashefsky, director of the North American Jewish Data Bank.

"There's something of a compulsion to hold onto certain holidays," added Dashefsky, who teaches at the University of Connecticut. "With Passover, it's the ritual of telling the story, and passing it from one generation to another."

The Seder will be a study in genealogy with the Boxermans. They will observe the first Seder tonight with in-laws of their daughter, Debbie Eisenberg. They'll hold the second Seder at their own house. The extremely extended family will include siblings, children, parents, even an 88-year-old great-grandmother.

What's so great about Passover? Susan Boxerman has a ready answer.

"It's the food!" she declared with a raised index finger. "Even people who don't eat kosher want to go to Passover dinner at someone's house."

Foods are indeed a sizable part of Passover, not just for nourishment, but for the story they symbolize. The bitter herbs for the tear-inducing slavery. Unleavened matzo, for the haste in leaving Egypt. It's one of the few holidays where people literally absorb teachings through food.

Generations will also mix at the home of Mark and Helen Cohan in Boca Raton: in-laws, children, grandchildren, and yes, a great-grandmother - Yetta Herman, 89.

"It's all about mishpocha!" Herman exclaims, using the Yiddish word for an extended family. "It's about having everyone together. And when I come away from each Seder, I feel I've learned a lot from my grandchildren."

The Cohan table itself becomes a museum of Jewish learning. There's a lacy tablecloth, from Mark Cohan's grandmother. There's a silver Seder plate and a variety of Haggadot, or service books. Rabbi Simcha Friedman, an in-law, treasures a handwritten Haggadah from Stalin-era Soviet Union, bearing the title Mutzal May-Aish, or "Rescued From the Fire."

Also on the table will be the Cup of Miriam, a fairly new tradition. The foot-tall glass cup of red, blue and aqua stands for Moses' sister and other Jewish women.

"If it weren't for the righteous women of the period, the Israelites would have never made it out of Egypt," Helen Cohan says.

That "tactile" learning is part of the power of Passover, says Rabbi David Steinhardt of B'nai Torah Congregation, where the Cohans worship.

"It has symbols that you hold up, touch, talk about," Steinhardt says. "The home becomes a classroom. The table is like a symposium.

"The Haggadah is layered in meaning, with questions, music and rabbinic reflections. A scholar can engage in it. So can a young child."

The Cohans are systematic about Seder preparations. Either Friedman or one of the grown sons "assigns" parts of the program, such as the history of the Exodus story, to the other relatives.

They even plan a "pre-Seder" for the children, with special toys - including puzzles, masks for the Ten Plagues, hopping plastic frogs and a toddling wind-up matzo ball - and perform a role play with Moses and Pharaoh costumes.

It's all very different from Mark Cohan's upbringing as a nontraditional Reform Jew. His family would often join 100 other temple members for a community Seder.

"Many Reform Jews didn't feel capable of doing a Seder on their own," he says, then smiles. "I've come a long way."

The Boxerman Seder table will have its own keepsakes. It will include an engraved brass matzo plate, an heirloom from Susan Boxerman's mother. And a gilded white Seder plate, a gift to her mother. And a plain white muslin matzo cloth, made by their daughter as a preteen.

The cloth is used to hold the afikomon, the last piece of matzo eaten before the end of the Seder. Stuart Boxerman lets the children "steal" and hide the piece - he gives them a chance by going to wash his hands - then searches the house as they gleefully call out "Warm!" or "Cold!"

Debbie Eisenberg, their 37-year-old daughter, remembers the Seders as a girl. She recalls having her grandmother over and playing with her cousins.

"I was bored somewhat at the time," she acknowledged. "But as I grew older and left off a year or two, I grew to cherish it, and I realized how important it was. I want to have my kids grow up the way I did."

James D. Davis can be reached at jdavis@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4730.